Too Soon?

Saturday Night Live’s Election Nightmare Sketch Is All Too Real

Would you like to watch the light slowly drain from a group of idealistic liberals’ eyes as they gradually realize, with ever-growing horror, that Donald J. Trump will be their—our!—next president? Of course you wouldn’t! Yet this Saturday Night Live sketch about election night in action is impossible to look away from, mostly because it will ring so uncomfortably true for anyone who resembles most of its characters—media-savvy, complacent, white. Very white.

It’s a good thing, then, that the sketch also features S.N.L. host Dave Chappelle as a voice of reason, watching with amusement as his pale pals melt down with shock upon realizing that, hey, Americans are actually a pretty racist bunch. Halfway through, he also gets a little help from a similarly unruffled Chris Rock—the only other person in the room who’s not surprised by what he’s seeing.